Shilpi Somaya Gowda

Shilpi Somaya Gowda is the award-winning, New York Times and internationally bestselling Canadian author of Secret Daughter, The Golden Son, and The Shape of Family.

The story was inspired by Gowda's experience volunteering at an orphanage in India during a summer in college, and explores the repercussions of female infanticide that is prevalent in many parts of Asia.

... Gowda doesn't neaten up the messy complications of family life as she warmly affirms the power of love to help people grow and change.

Marisa de los Santos, New York Times bestselling author of Belong to Me and The Precious One, commented on The Golden Son, saying, Shilpi Somaya Gowda "is as adept at crafting disparate, fully realized worlds—a village in India, a medical school in Texas—as she is at creating compelling characters.

The Golden Son was the winner of the French literary prize Prix des Lyceens Folio, #1 on the Canadian Fiction bestseller list in both of Canada's national newspapers (Globe & Mail and Toronto Star), a Target Book Club Pick for December 2016, a Costco Canada Buyers’ Pick, and on the USA Today bestseller list.

The story follows the Shahs, a close-knit Indian American family adjusting to their new life in Pacific Hills, a fictional, affluent neighborhood in Southern California.